Chinese Okra - An Anthology

IX. A Box of Pricy Chicken Tenders

In which a narrator narrates an uninspiring not-so-deep non-meta short story that consists of a box of pricy chicken tenders

*****

Honestly, I was pretty convinced I'd bomb the internship application. I mean, most of my buddies and even random folks I know are miles ahead of me. It's like I'm caught in this loop of feeling inferior. All I've got in my writing bag are these dramatic short stories, trying way too hard to sound impressive. Even my best gal jokes about how I use too many extravagant words in my short stories.

Did you catch that little move I just pulled? Yeah, the "extravagant" one. Totally on purpose. Maybe it's not that extravagant but it was a good try, right? And nope, this isn't some meta short story thing. This is just a short story.

But here's the deal: my pal, doing HR stuff and also the CEO of an org I'm part of, drops the bomb that I should slap his reference number on my CV. Supposedly, it bumps up my chances.

And so, I did. I'm talking about having done the "slap his reference number" part and the "cross your fingers for acceptance" part. Turns out, the interview process was a speed run, too quick for my taste, and I missed out on an interview with a way... say, fancier company.

But hey, I got the role! Not bad for a self-pitying dude drowning in a pool of self-hatred who constantly belittles his own unmemorable achievements, right?

Let me spill the beans on how the interview went down — it's a tale, to be honest.

So, there I was in the middle of community service, a blackout hit in the afternoon, and my pals vanished for their own community service reasons. I was left solo at my post, figuring out how to score WiFi in a village blackout with the world's worst internet connection on my phone, which, to add insult to injury, is on the brink of a juice apocalypse. Sounds like a scene from a slapstick comedy, doesn't it? Well, the joke's on me, I guess.

But thank God— as I'm on the God-believing squad — it all sorts itself out. I manage to snag someone's phone, leech off their hotspot, and hijack a power bank to juice up my dying phone. Long story short, the interview then happened just as I mentioned.

Now, the grand finale?

Bagged the most prestigious internship in my country, and slipped myself into a big-shot media company. It was epic. No metaphors necessary.

But what's not so epic, if I am able to admit something? Missing out on my campus friends. Missing our everyday stuff, our lives, our similar realities, our proximities, our grand visions of friendship enduring any time and space (which, thank the stars, it does)... Still, I quite literally miss them.

And some of my friends, if not all, claim they're the ones missing out, specifically on what I have. I wish I could tell them about those initial weeks, when my dad ghosted me despite knowing I needed him to move to the city where the internship's at — around 7 hours away (Google Maps can't be trusted). I wish I could tell them about the second week, when, after finishing community service and getting into the internship, I actually hung myself by tying my neck in a circle knot with each end tied to a door handle and a table foot, letting myself hover as I free my feet from the floor inside the already-suffocating rented room.

But I just landed an internship, have fantastic friends from uni and community service, and ended up with lovely intern buddies. There were and are outlets for the lows I feel! So, no real reason to entertain thoughts of hanging myself with a rope that once secured those extremely pricy chicken tenders I bought ages ago, right?

I mean, if I did die, I wouldn't be dishing out this non-meta uninspiring short story, right?

Right.

So, what made me still alive?

Pure cowardice, folks. Quite the plot twist, huh? And by the way, it was irony, both the "quite the plot twist" part and the fact that it was simply cowardice. Don't think I'm dumb enough to not understand what an irony is. And nope, this is still not a motivational meta short story.

But anyway, what unfolds next?

Off I go to my community service buddy's place, spilling my heart out with not a single tear, and conclude that my ordeal isn't that deep. Just a phase triggered by the fear of bidding farewell to everything I hold dear, courtesy of my father's vanishing act for the sake of my internship. It only fueled my self-loathing.

We ended up delving into deep convos, with him even confessing some graceless secret, met by my customary philosophical blabber.

The cherry on top? The day my dad, who'd been off gallivanting with his mistress since my uni days, ceased ghosting and swooped into the city to pick me up. I thanked my community service friend with the same box of wallet-draining chicken tenders.

I sent my friend the dinner when my dad was trying hard to seem chill in the driver's seat and my brother, with a deep-seated yet bridled anger, was looking all deadpan in the shotgun, while me in the middle seat of the car with unfinished payment was texting with him. As we kept chatting, my community service buddy shot me a snap of him receiving the tenders from the delivery guy. I urged him to share the feast with my other community service friend heading over to his place, telling him not to leave his friend with only the box.

That was our last chat, at least till the day I'm writing this non-meta uninspiring short story.

And truth be told, I miss eating just a box of those pricy chicken tenders. God, they were really good.[]